Is Your Food Helping or Harming Your Brain Health

Could your favorite foods be quietly working against your brain? Polysorbate 80 (P80), a common emulsifier in countless food items and medications, might be more dangerous than you think. This episode of the Winning Edge Coach Podcast, hosted by Kevin Oakley, promises to uncover the potential threats posed by P80 to your cognitive health. We'll explore the gut-brain axis and reveal how the delicate balance of trillions of gut bacteria is essential for maintaining mental clarity. Discover what cutting-edge research, primarily from mouse models, suggests about the long-term effects of this pervasive additive and what it might mean for humans.

As nutrition's influence on cognitive health takes center stage, we challenge you to rethink your dietary choices. Could these decisions be the key to preserving your mental acuity and presenting the best version of yourself each day? Join us as we discuss the undeniable connection between what you eat and how sharp your mind stays. This episode is a call to action for anyone committed to optimizing their cognitive functions. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a rating, and share this vital conversation with friends. For ongoing insights and updates, follow Kevin on Twitter at winningedgepod. Your path to enhanced brain health begins now.

Chapters

• 0:00 Food Additives and Cognitive Health
• 13:07 Nutrition Impact on Cognitive Health

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of the Winning Edge Coach podcast, the podcast where I am going to give you the tools, tactics and techniques to achieve success in every aspect of your life. I'm your host, kevin Oakley. In this episode, we're going to discuss something slightly different. I want you to imagine that your favourite foods, the ones you enjoy every day, you to imagine that your favourite foods, the ones you enjoy every day without a second thought, could be secretly sabotaging your brain health. In today's episode of the Winning Edge Coach Podcast, we're diving deep into the world of a common food additive that might be doing you more harm than you ever realised. So are you ready to uncover a hidden threat lurking in your kitchen? Welcome to the Winning Edge Coach Podcast. I am Kevin Oakley. As always, being your host, I'm also a peak performance mindset and life coach. In each episode, I want to share with you the tools, tactics and techniques to create a winning edge mindset, to help you to live the life you were meant to live. I want you to imagine this you're enjoying your favorite ice cream or salad dressing, thinking you're treating yourself to a harmless indulgence. But what if I told you that a common ingredient in these foods might be silently affecting your brain health, impacting your cognition, making thoughts slower, maybe bringing on age-related brain conditions quicker. That's right. We're talking about polysorbate 80, or P80 as it's known for short. It's an emulsifier used in countless food products and even some medications, but recent research suggests it might not be as innocuous as we once thought.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Now you might be wondering what does a food additive have to do with my brain? Well, it comes down to the fascinating world of the gut brain axis. You see, our gut is home to trillions of bacteria that play a crucial role in our overall health. These tiny tenants aren't just passive roommates. They are active participants in our body's function, including our cognitive health. And when I say trillions, I mean trillions. Let me paint a picture for you. If we were to represent the number of bacteria in the average human gut using grains of sand, we'd need between 10,000 to 100,000 kilograms of sand, depending on your gut makeup, etc. That's about 10 to 100 metric tons. Let's put that into perspective. The lower estimate would fill about 6 to 7 standard dumper trucks, while the upper estimate would fill a staggering 60-70 dump trucks. Imagine that convoy of sand filled trucks, and that's an indication of the bacterial population living inside you right now. This massive microbial community isn't just taking up space. It's constantly communicating with your brain, influencing everything from your mood to your cognitive function. It's like having a bustling city in your stomach, colon, etc. Sending out constant updates to the command center your brain, in your head.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Now here's where p80 enters the picture. This common food additive isn't just a passive ingredient. It's like introducing a disrupt, disruptive element into that well-organized city of microbes. A recent study using a mouse model of accelerated aging found that long-term exposure to P80 can wreak havoc on your gut bacteria. It's as if we're bulldozing parts of our microbial metropolis and expecting everything to function normally. This disruption in the gut microbiome can lead to some pretty alarming results, one of them being accelerated cognitive decline, increased inflammation of the brain, damage to the actual protective barriers both in the gut and the brain. It's as if P80 is opening the doors for our most vital organs and letting in all sorts of troublemakers. And then you consider the sheer scale of your gut microbiome Remember those dump trucks full of sand it becomes clear how even a small disturbance can have far-reaching effects. But there's more. The study uncovered a fascinating mechanism behind these effects. P80 seems to increase the production of certain bile acids, particularly one called deoxycholic acid or DCA, now bile acids. They're usually the unsung heroes of our digestive system, but when they're out of balance, they can turn into villains. In this case, elevated DCA levels were found not just in the gut, but also in the brain, where they stirred up inflammation like a boiling pot of water in a way. Now I know what you're thinking, kev. This study was done on mice. What does it mean for humans? And I'm always a bit sceptical with mice modelling. Mice aren't human beings and you're right to be cautious. While we can't directly translate these results to humans, they do raise some important questions about the long-term effects of common food additives on our health, especially as we age.

Speaker 1: 6:21

This podcast is all about bringing your best self to every single day and, I think again, being at the peak of your cognition every day, being able to juggle your mental challenges, being sharp mentally, being no brain fog, having none of the brain fog bringing your mental hate game, is very important. I think this is why this study appealed to me. Is that polysorbate 80 or p80 could actually be stopping you from being at your best day to day? That disruption of your gut microbiome that's then impacting on inflammation your brain. Leaky brain is probably actually meaning that you aren't functioning at your best. You aren't bringing your best to every single day. You're finding, you know, creative thought harder. You're finding problem solving harder. You're forgetting little things you know. You're forgetting where you left your keys. You're going to the shops, you're forgetting items that you should have picked up. So, for me, being aware of this food additive and making changes is all about bringing your A game. Being on top cognitively. To be able to be the best version of yourself is very important, and that's what this podcast is all about. It's about being at your best and bringing your best self into your life every single day. So, for me, maintaining your cognitive health, now and as we age, is crucial for overall well-being and the quality of our life.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Research has shown that there's several benefits of preserving cognitive function, especially as we get older. One of them is enhanced independence. Good cognitive health, especially as we age, allows older adults to think clearly, make decisions and perform everyday tasks independently. It's all about your independence, enabling you to maintain your autonomy. Do the things you want to do. Engage in the activities you want to engage in. As you get older, you want to do, engage in the activities you want to engage in as you get older. Maintaining good cognitive health also helps you to regulate your emotions better when you're young and also, more importantly, older adults with better cognitive health tend to manage their emotions more effectively and navigate complex social interactions more skillfully than even younger adults. So maintaining that cognitive health when you're young and again as you age, helps you to bring that emotional regulation.

Speaker 1: 9:10

One of the key things for me about maintaining good cognitive health is the reduction in the risk of dementia. By combining what we're talking about being mindful of the food that you eat and the additives it contains, as well as maintaining an active lifestyle could actually reduce your risk of dementia by between 35 and 40 percent. So what is the winning edge here? What can we take away from this? Well, for me, here are a few of the key takeaways. Firstly, the obvious is be mindful of processed foods. Be careful what you eat, look at those labels closely and be aware of what you're consuming. One of the sort of rules that I use is, if I look at a label and there's ingredients in there that I cannot go and actually purchase off the supermarket shelf, it's a food to avoid. So in other words, if you see a chemical name on there that you cannot walk over to another part of the supermarket and buy a carton or a packet containing that chemical, you don't eat it Generally. Another tip is if a food contains more than four ingredients, especially with names you can't pronounce or you've never heard of, is a food to avoid. These are just little things you can look out for. Try and focus your diet around unprocessed foods, whole foods in their natural form.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Your gut microbiome needs nourishing. It needs certain foods to nourish it, to help it to grow, expand and keep it active. It likes the fibrous foods. It likes the beans. Legumes also give it some bacteria, as in yogurts, kefir and other fermented foods. Your gut microbiome will flourish when fed correctly. The key is avoid the ultra-processed, heavily chemical-laden additives and especially P80 that's found in those ice creams, salad dressings, etc.

Speaker 1: 11:32

The other thing is keep abreast of the research. Salad dressings, etc. The other thing is keep abreast of the research. The gut microbiome is almost like an uncharted territory. It's like the unknown parts of the universe. We've still got a lot to learn about the importance of the gut microbiome, how it interacts with the rest of our body. There's some great research going on about fecal implants yes, I did say that word, fecal implants and the way just changing somebody's gut bacteria actually can change their health. It can also change their mood, taking somebody from being very anxious to removing that anxiety and making them calm. So the gut microbiome is the sort of new frontier, as it were, and we're only beginning to understand its importance.

Speaker 1: 12:22

So remember, small changes in your diet today could actually lead to big wins for your brain health tomorrow. And as we wrap up today's episode, I want to leave you with this thought your gut and your brain are in constant communication. By taking care of one, you're taking care of the other. So next time you reach for that process snack, ask yourself is this going to feed me and give me a winning edge? Or are I basically going to be dulling my cognitive health and dulling my cognitive abilities and making myself slower, slower at problem solving, maybe giving myself a little bit of anxiety and nervousness, etc. So that's the takeaway for today.

Speaker 1: 13:07

So our usual episode of the Winning Edge Coach Podcast, but I think it ties in nicely the fact that what you're actually putting in your mouth can actually have an impact on your cognitive health how quick your mental faculties are and the person you bring into day-to-day life. Is it the best version of you or are you bringing a dulled down version? That's it for today's episode. That was the Winning Edge Coach podcast. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the Winning Edge Coach podcast and you'd like to help support the podcast, please hit the subscribe button and, if possible, leave a rating or a review. Also, please feel free to share the podcast with others and post about it on your favourite social media platform. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on Twitter at winningedgepod. Thanks again. I'll see you next time.